Africa Has No Address
Africa has no address
this is a place at war.
Here are poor houses
and poor people.
The people live here like cockroaches,
they've been here a long time.
People no longer people,
people deprived of hearts, minds,
people without function
for which an address doesn't exist
worse: in whose name political conspirators
are engaged in the looting of the national
treasury
The young leave quickly
unwilling to know the wisdom
of their estranged parents.
Even the barking dogs
would rather wrestle
than eat--
while the roaming chickens
play hide-and-seek with
the smallest children.
The old colonial farms have gone back to forest
the new resettled farmer knows only the sun
knows nothing of food or of farming
The new doctor has borrowed the witchdoctor's face
leaving his usual surgery to wander
some dilapidated, half imagined hospital
where experiments are performed on people
I came to deliver a letter
I came to save the damned,
the scum of your society.
And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
this here's a world of losers and sinners
and all I see is the darkness of your soul.
I thought hard for us all--my only letter--
then threw it away into the darkness,
and was overtaken inexplicably by sorrow.
I had tasted the face of Africa.
Africa has no address.
Copyright © Edward Ndopu | Year Posted 2017
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